Exploring Miraflores

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Brett and I woke up fairly hung over since we were out so damn late boozing the previous night. Our hostel room smelled pretty musty and is in the back part of the hostel next to the “storage room” where the mishmash of wares that people have left or discarded just end up. The hallway is dark and a little dingy but the hostel itself is very friendly and inviting. There are lots of people staying here from all over the world: Japanese, Chilean, Canadian, American, Peruvian people all staying in the same locale. It’s pretty great. The weather here is hot. Easily 80-90 degrees every day and pretty humid so sleeping is a chore since there isn’t a breeze in our room and it gets fairly stifling with the door closed. It’s nice to open it up and get a breeze in the morning after a long hot sweaty night. The bathroom is adjacent to our room and there is a hole in the wall near the ceiling with a cloth over it, which is the opening between the bathroom and our room so needless to say you can hear everything that goes on. Definitely not the best situation hahah but I have to laugh about it. We got up and moving, went to the local grocery store, called VIVANDA and got ourselves some stuff for lunch and some water and beer. It’s just like an American grocery store except, as is the case in Europe, all the meat and eggs are just out in these small refrigerators for everyone to peruse. Certainly takes some getting used to. Once we got our food situation square we went for a little stroll around Miraflores. Miraflores is a very cosmopolitan area of Lima, it’s very posh and everyone here seems very happy going about their daily business. We walked down the Av. Jose Pardo to the city center of Miraflores and explored a few shops and the bustling promenade and street vendors of all kinds. They had everything for sale from very nice art to the smallest souvenir you could ever want. We made our way to the ocean and we thought we’d be able to just walk to the beach, but Miraflores is situated probably 1000 feet above where the ocean is and there are HUGE precipices and drop offs that are maybe five feet from the walkway of the park where we were at. Some of the pictures show this pretty well but you really can’t explain the feeling of being so close to the edge of this cliff while all the time surrounded by society and people. Kids, bikers, walkers, runners, lovers kissing, vendors vending. It’s fairly surreal yet extremely beautiful and curious at the same time. To get down to the beach, which really isn’t a beach at all, in fact it’s pretty rocky with very little sand; you have to walk down an immense amount of stairs that seem never ending. Once down there though, there are tons of people surfing and families lying on the rocky beach, along with lots of people our age just having fun and relaxing. We lay on the rocks for about a half hour during which time we were given some free condoms and pens from this company that apparently markets everything of that nature. We were asked to take a picture with the scantily clad dude and chick that were passing them out, “hold up the product for the picture” hahah….i want to get my hands on that photo. Piel is the name of the company. We then ascended the stairs again to return to our hostel and it seemed pretty daunting looking up at it. We took a different route to try and expose ourselves to a little more of the city that we hadn’t seen and actually found that we knew where we were going after a while. We have a little lay of the land now. We came back to the hostel and changed and we went for a run along the promenade that is adjacent to the ocean, we saw this giant mall (Centro commercial) that is built into the side of the mountain next to the sea. It was crazy because this mall was totally open air and it seemed like there was nothing to stop the mall from getting soaked if it rained. I think however that it must not rain here all that often since this structure exists year round. After our run we did a quick Crossfit workout at these pull-up bars in a park nearby, though I was totally dehydrated and felt like shit so I couldn’t even finish it. I thought I was going to puke. Afterwards we came back here and took a nap for a while…when I woke up I found that being in in the sun for just an hour was enough time for my skin to get cooked. I am not burned everywhere but my forehead and neck are pretty bad. They are feeling better now though thank the lord. When I woke up from my nap I took a shower and went to meet Mayra for a drink. We had a few beers and drinks turned into dinner. We walked up the promenade together, it was very romantic and she is so gorgeous that I almost couldn’t believe that this was all happening on my second night haha. We came back to our hostel and chilled with Brett and had a beer. Afterwards I walked her to the corner and hailed a cab for her and sent her on her way. When I came back in everyone here was getting ready for bed so I cleaned up and fell asleep in the sweltering, musty heat of our little room.

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Comments

[Rick Merritt]

I love it
Tom, these stories are great. I love reading it. I have a few concerns though...one you are way to open about spending nights in a Hot Sweaty room with Brett. haha. The other concern is how you always seem to be on the look out for "Lovers Kissing." I think you mentioned it about 4 times in the 2 posts since you have been there. Work on bringing that ratio down. Love you buddy